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Tuesday, 10 September 2013

One of the comments I receive more than
any other when it comes to the blog (and conversations I have on the
telephone, via the online chat or face to face in the shop with people)
is how refreshing they find my honesty. If I think a certain flower
combination won't work, or a specific design might not look quite right,
then I will tell my customers. The same goes for the flowers
themselves; if a flower comes in from the wholesaler and I think it's
not good enough to be sold (meaning I think it's not going to last a
minimum of 7 days) then I will refuse to sell said flower - I have even
been known to contact an overseas customer to say the flowers I'd
specifically ordered for him had come in, but I didn't consider them
good enough to send out, so between us we came up with an alternative.
At the end of the day my business reputation is on the line if I send
out flowers that aren't going to last.

That's
why this morning it was hard to read the email that was sent to the
shop last night, stating that 12 roses we delivered last Tuesday were
dead by Sunday, and had been thrown in the bin. Once I had got over the
shock that flowers we sent out hadn't last, I re-read the email and I
will admit it threw me into a bit of a quandary. Did the customer want a
refund? or replacement? Was he just letting me know that the quality of
the roses wasn't good enough? Upon checking out the order, I noticed
that it was 6 of one colour and 6 of another; now I will be honest IF
the the order had been for just one colour, I would have assumed it was
an issue with the wrap of roses themselves, and possibly offered him a
discount on his next order, but for it to be 2 separate colours (and
therefore 2 separate wraps) it is most likely to be that the customer
hasn't followed the care instructions (or the wholesaler hasn't dealt
with them correctly before sending them out to me) but of course without
the flowers being returned to me, I have no way of knowing what the
problem with them is; I have received no complaints on the other roses
from the same wraps that were sent out to different customers on the
same day; I also have one of the white roses from the same order (we
have to buy them in wraps of 20 - the customer had only 6 and the
remaining 14 didn't all sell on the day, and as you all know I refuse to
have roses in the shop longer than 24 hours - so I took one home) and
this morning when I left it was still as fresh looking as the day it
arrived in the shop.

Now my biggest
dilemma was how I deal with this so the customer doesn't hit the
internet and put us down on every review site there is, but by the same
token I have never dealt with this customer before, I know that at least
one of the white roses from the same wrap is still perfect, and I have
no way of knowing whether the roses the customer received were dead
through them being bad to begin with, or because they weren't looked
after correctly. Had he bought some food and it had been off, he would
have taken it back to the store it was purchased from for a refund. Had
he bought clothing from a store that had a hole in, for a
refund/replacement he would have had to take it back, so why is it
deemed acceptable for people to think they can just email a florist,
tell them the flowers are in the bin and expect something to be done
about it? This is why I made the tough decision to tell the gentleman
that unless I receive the flowers back, then there is nothing I can do
about it. This may now result in him leaving bad reviews about us all
over the internet, but just say he then tells his friends all they need
to do is email us to say their flowers have died, and before you know
what's happening I could be sending out flowers, or giving away money
all over the place for absolutely no reason whatsoever. So if you
receive flowers at any time, and believe they are not good enough,
please let us have them back so we can at least get our money back from
the wholesalers too, before we replace them for you. I do hate the
thought that a customer feels let down, but I believe this to be the
right decision.

So the sneak preview..

You
know how every year the Halloween window is the one we all look forward
to? Well this year is no different, but I will admit it gets harder
each year to come up with something different. In recent years we've
based the displays on the Amityville Horror (one of the best fictional books you could read - sadly the true story
prior to the fiction isn't quite such a nice read); we've used the
traditional oranges; reds and purples have featured and last year of
course we went all black and white with the UV lights on (they did
create an amazing effect that's for sure) but we wanted something a bit
more upbeat this year, so settled on Orange (got to have some tradition)
Black (again a halloween associated colour) but we've added a Lime
Green to the mix too. Vlad
will himself be taking centre stage in the window this year and has had
his hat and buttonhole decorated accordingly; yesterday he also held
the wedding bouquet that will be making an appearance in the window; we
think he looked quite good, and are looking forward to seeing how the
colours will work together.

I
think our colours are going to work well; can't wait until October to
get it all finished and in ready for your opinions when you pass by.